Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
RYE
Getting ready for a cattle drive was always busy, but this year was worse ’cause of my plan to take a step away to drive up to Oregon, and ’cause it was my last drive on my dad’s land. Soon, I’d have my own herd to worry about.
I’d come this morning to kiss and hold Aubrey before I left to meet with some of the farmers I’d been calling and emailing for the better part of a year, but a week had gone by since I’d last seen her, and it had been a mistake to stay away. I’d thought giving her time with her boys would help all three of them, but now I saw that all it had done was give Aubrey time to doubt us.
She fought tears, her throat tightening and working to contain the storm trying to spill out. “Rye, I have to. Micah and Benji aren’t ready for this.”
My hands fisted at my sides. I wanted to roar! Her husband had been gone ten years, but here he was between us, and through her boys, she was still letting Tommy treat her like his property from the grave.
Or was that just her excuse? Had she become another person who thought I couldn’t handle what needed to be handled? Did she still see me as a kid? Or was she so used to feeling sadness that she couldn’t fathom a life without it?
“ Dammit , woman. You’re just gonna walk away? Why? Because I’m not him? I don’t bring you heartache, so you don’t want me? That’s pretty fucked up.”
She shook her head, and damp strands of her hair fell out of the loose ponytail she’d pulled them into. They whispered forward over her shoulders, drawing my eyes to her neck, and I watched as she swallowed hard.
“No. That’s not what I’m doin’, but maybe it’s not the right time. Maybe we could just take a step back? You have the new business to focus on, and I need to rebuild mine. I haven’t even fulfilled my part of the bargain. I didn’t help you at all. Aren’t you mad at me?” She was trying hard now to come up with a reason to let me go. “This isn’t even real. You’re the one who said it. You’re the one who said we should ‘ fake date.’”
Fake? I rolled my eyes. Still trying to cling to that distinction wouldn’t work, and she knew it. I didn’t usually go around telling women I loved them if what I felt was fake.
“Let’s you and I be clear here, Spitfire. You helped me more than you’ll ever know. Your belief in me is worth a fuck of a lot more than five-thousand dollars, but it was never about that for me. Don’t act like you didn’t know it. I’m beggin’ you here. You’re lettin’ your boys treat you the same way their dad did. You don’t deserve that.”
“I’m scared, Rye. I don’t know who to be. Don’t you get that? I’m not ready for this, for you and me.”
“You and me?” I said, trying hard to rein in the panic I felt to lose her. She was all I’d ever wanted. “Maybe you didn’t ever expect to feel it again, but our love is one for the ages. That’s what’s been goin’ on since the night I picked you up in my truck and turned your light back on, when midnight surrounded us and the spring air kissed us.
“We’ve been fallin’ in love, in case you missed it. It feels scary to you, I know, a little bit out of control, but that’s what love is, baby. It’s takin’ a chance.”
“I’m too old for?—”
“That’s a load of horse shit, and you know it. And your boys are grown. They can handle this if you can, and I know you can. And don’t you even try to bullshit me,” I said, swinging my arm behind me. “You’re just as big a romantic as I am. It’s why you love all these books. Nobody’s too old for love, and there’s no one in this world who deserves it more than you. You deserve a man to worship you, to tell you how much he loves you. You deserve a man to do for you the way you’ve always done for the men in your life.
“I am that man,” I promised.
She shook her head again. She was trying to talk herself out of loving me. She was afraid to love me.
“I’ve been alone a long time. Maybe I’m just not cut out for this—” She waved her hand between us. “For us. You didn’t ask me if I was ready for it all to be real .”
“It’s been real since day one and you know it in your bones. And now you’re askin’ me to let you go, to walk away from the most powerful thing I’ve ever felt? What, because of a little fear? I can’t do that.”
There was no way I’d let her do it either.
“But here’s what I am prepared to do.”
The look of trepidation on her face made my lungs seize up. I pressed my hand to my heart, trying to make it work again.
I wanted to give her what she wanted, but what she thought she wanted was ridiculous.
“You’re right,” I said. “You need to get things straight in your head and your heart, and I’m drivin’ over to Oregon when I leave here, like I told you about, but I’ll be back for the drive. It’s my last hoorah at G&S. I’ll expect you to be there. I hope you’ll be there. And if you’re not, then I guess… I guess I’ll need to figure out what love means all over again.
“I love you, Spitfire, and that’s who you’ll always be to me: someone who’s bold and brave and wild. Someone who doesn’t let life tear her down. No, you take it by the balls and make it yours.”
She stared up at me, tears finally filling her wide brown eyes.
Holding both her hands in mine and gripping them tightly, I whispered, “Make it yours, Aubrey. Make me yours,” and I leaned down and kissed her.
She whimpered into my mouth and slipped her tongue inside, and I tilted my head and let her breath and her taste wash me clean from the inside out. She planted her hands on my shoulders and jumped up, and I held her in my arms.
It was right where she belonged, but the kiss felt like goodbye.
“There’s all these grays between us when you let your worries rule you,” I said softly, looking in her eyes, trying to find any hope I could, “but I’ll be plain. I want you, and when I look at you, all I see is color. I see your rose-gold hair and your amber eyes that smile and light up for me. I see that pink dress, the one that haunted my dreams for half my life. I see green grass out in front of me, and you’re runnin’ to me on bare feet, with the yellow sun at your back and the blue sky above you. Why can’t you see it too?”
“Why do you have to say things like that?” she said, tears finally falling, and she threaded her fingers through my hair. “Make love to me, right here, right now.”
Setting her back on her feet, I untangled her hands gently and placed them at her sides. “No.”
She pulled back, took a step away from me, and hurt and fear and regret washed over her face, one devastation at a time.
“As much as I wanna take you and claim you right fuckin’ now, sex can’t fix this.” No matter how much I wished it could.
“That’s not what I?—”
“It is what you meant. You want me to fuck you so you can tell yourself that’s all it was between us, just some good, fake sex between the goodbye girl and the young cowboy. But that’s not all this is, and you damn well know it in your heart.”
“Rye—”
“Be at the ranch, ten o’clock Sunday mornin’. That’s when the festivities start. Come hungry and ready to dance with me. Come ready to claim me .”
Her tears fell like rain now, and I kissed her nose and her cheek, her forehead and her hair, trying like hell not to cry too. I wanted to memorize her smell, the feel of her skin on my lips and in my hands. I wanted to convince her all the things running through her mind were fleeting worries and nothing more.
I wanted her to know we belonged together.
But I couldn’t make her believe it any more than I could make myself believe that I’d be okay if she wasn’t at G&S in less than a week.
“I’m goin’,” I said. “I have to ’cause you got some thinkin’ to do.” Kissing her lips softly, I said, “I won’t be here, but I’m here .” I laid my hand over her heart. “You call me if you need to talk. Text me if you need to laugh, but think about what I said. Okay?”
Finally, she nodded.
“Love you, Spitfire. There ain’t nothin’ fake about the way I feel, but I need to know you love me too. For real. That I’m important enough to you for you to make room in your life for us, to let all the bullshit go, say ‘fuck the fear,’ and love me. I’m yours forever if you can.”
Turning away from her, I grabbed my hat off the counter and fixed it on my head. I pulled the brim down low, and then I made myself walk away.
I just hoped like hell it wasn’t the last time.